Beyond Organic Local Farm Products

Two Hives – Different Stories

The weather has been great for the local wildflowers, we see them blossoming all over the place now. This also means our bees have been on overdrive gathering nectar and pollen. Meaning they might be filling up their comb faster than they can make it or have room to make it!

It had been a little over two weeks since our last full inspection of the hives. We didn’t feel we had to do a full inspection since there’s been lots of activity in both hives, but we did want to make sure they had ample space to expand comb if needed.

Comb Filled Across Hive Covered In Bees

To do this quick inspection I just took off the roof then slid the follower board out of the way so we could see how far the comb development had progressed. We were amazed to see the comb filling almost all the bars and all the way across the hive on our Lexington hive!

They needed more space! So we put the remaining top bars for this hive in place and closed it back up!

All Top Bars Installed On Lexington Hive

Concord: The Weaker Hive

Concord hive is a different story all together. Those poor bees are just not keeping up with their sisters in Lexington. They only have comb built across about 1/4 to 1/2 of the top bars they have in place. There is capped brood on that comb and eggs, so the queen is there and working. But they just don’t seem to be building comb as fast or having as many new bees develop.

So we left the Concord hive alone, replaced the follower board where it was and closed it back up.

We will check back on Concord in a week to see how it has progressed. If they are still having trouble we may put the feeder back in the hive to give them an extra boost of food to encourage comb growth.